


coax the cold right out of me

by netflixing



Category: To All the Boys I've Loved Before Series - Jenny Han, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, F/M, First Meetings, Flirting, Fluff, Meet-Cute, Sickfic, Soft !!, first time writing in this tag pls be gentle, unnecessary background and character descriptions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 01:21:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17416271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/netflixing/pseuds/netflixing
Summary: Lara Jean and Peter Kavinsky meet in the most unappealing location you could ever think of, but somehow, love still finds its way into the ER at 1am (even in uncomfortable plastic chairs)alternative titledlara jean and peter meet cute





	coax the cold right out of me

**Author's Note:**

> this is set in like early Jan, just after Xmas, and just after school semester started. 
> 
> * title comes from Bite by Troye Sivan 
> 
> ** I don't own the tatbilb series or claim its mine, this is a work of fan fiction and purely out of curing my writers block!

“I swear to _fuck_ , if you don’t see me soon I’m going to start throwing shit..” 

Lara-Jean removes an earbud cautiously, pausing the podcast she was listening to, crossing and uncrossing her stocking covered legs in the horribly uncomfortable plastic chair she was sat in. 

It was about that time in the middle of the semester when the campus cold seemed to have gotten just about everyone moping around and skipping classes to stay in bed because of coughs and fevers, rewatching seasons of the Office and Gilmore Girls. 

She, of course, had caught it from her roommate, no matter how much she used those cute little hand sanitizers from Forever 21, she still managed to be just about hacking up a lung last night in bed, and enough for her poor other roommate to complain about keeping her up and drive her to the emergency room of the hospital at the unholy hour of 1am. 

So here she was, in her big goose down parka, pastel patterned blanket scarf wrapped up to her chin, planted in a plastic chair and watching re runs of Family Feud on the one working TV in the waiting room. 

And now, she was being forced to listen to the wonderful choral sounds of a 6ft tall male complain about the waiting time, all the while cursing out the poor woman behind the glass of the reception desk. 

“You _know_ , If you got here earlier, you wouldn’t be waiting as long.” She quips as he returns to his seat across from her (ideally as uncomfortable as hers). 

“Well I couldn’t really come here any earlier, considering the fact that I tore whatever the hell this muscle is during practice and I currently feel like death.” He gestures wildly as he talks, rolling his eyes up into his head, and Lara-Jean nods as he does, suddenly engrossed in conversation with someone she just met not even five minutes ago. 

“Well, I want to say that’s your deltoid or something but I never took anatomy, so I’m probably completely wrong.” She shrugs, glancing briefly at the clock to see just how long she’d been waiting for. 

“Doesn’t really matter anyways, I just need some drugs strong enough to get me through my classes.” 

“So you’re a football player then? No you’re not douchey enough for that..” she purses her lips in concentration, “Rugby?” She offers with a lilt in her voice, coughing quietly into her scarf. 

“Not even a little bit close,” he snorts with laughter. “You missed lacrosse, we don’t even play it outside right now ‘cause of the snow, we have to go to this indoor area that the elementary school kids use for recreational soccer. The astroturf is utterly and complete shit, for your information.” 

She nodded, liking how he was rambling on, grateful somewhat that she didn’t have to talk because of her sore throat. 

“Have I seen you around campus before? You look..” he stops mid sentence, as if trying to put his finger on it. 

“I look better than this on a regular day, I just feel like complete and utter crap right now, and I’m sure you’ve confused me with somebody else,” she defends herself before he could fill the gaps with anything too damaging to her ego. 

“Gosh, I’m sorry.” She starts, shaking her head in somewhat shame “I didn’t mean to snap on you like that. I’m a journalism major but I took some electives in business management last summer for my internship, so maybe you know me from there?” She offers, tucking a long black curl behind her ear. 

He again pauses, almost scanning her features for anything that stood out to him and she immediately felt horribly self conscious, she should have probably listened to her roommate when she said to put on concealer and mascara before she left.

“Nope that’s not it. Do you do any campus clubs?”

She nods, pausing when a list of names were called, stretching her neck to hear, then sulking back into the chair when her name was again not one of the ones called. 

“Well, I’m the president of the baking club, and I volunteer for a few of the academic clubs as well.” She ticks them off on her baby blue manicured fingers as she speaks. However, she wasn’t one to boast her accomplishments, especially to a stranger she just met. 

“I’m Lara-Jean, Lara-Jean Song Covey actually if we’re being technical, I’d offer you my hand if I wasn’t uh currently harbouring the plague.” She laughs quietly. 

He grins in response, and she reprimands herself for the way she was watching as every little bit of his face lighted up in response from the scrunched spot between his eyebrows to the soft (one would say almost kissable) skin that sat on the cupid’s bow of his lips. 

“Well, I’m Peter. Peter Kavinsky, and I like your name _Miss Technicalities_ ” he responds, tilting his head to the side with a quirk of a darkened brow. 

“Baking club huh? Didn’t you guys do the cookie grams this year at Valentine’s Day? They were red?” He asks 

And oh does Lara-Jean remember.

It was a task of making 200 plus cookies in an oven in her freshman dorm meant for making frozen pizza and the occasional lasagna sent home with someone’s grandmother. They were red velvet cookies with cream cheese icing piped hearts onto each one after baking, and of course they were all sprinkled with a generous helping of one of her infamous sprinkle mixes that she made for each holiday, (this one had hearts, little arrows and a mixture of red and pink nonpareils) and stored in IKEA glass mason jars with the rest of her baking supplies that her sister helped meticulously pack for college with bubble wrap and butchers paper. 

Her freshman year roommate always used to make fun of how she never went out clubbing or to the bars during either of her semesters, but when finals season rolled around, Lara Jean would bake until the wee hours of the morning to relieve her stress, _(or to procrastinate studying)._

She nods, beaming, 

“Well yeah, that was me- didn’t you come by and order one for that girl with the baby pink highlights right? Always had it in beach waves?” She struggled to articulate the description she was trying to get across to him, debating whether or not the man across from her would know what a ‘beach wave’ even was. 

“She lived in the Cedar apartments down from the karaoke bar? I think I remember you ordering one when we were boothing in the campus centre” 

Lara Jean suddenly felt very stalker-ish, but quickly defended herself by saying it was only because they hand delivered them during the week of Valentines door to door in the university’s compound, and had to take down the location of every ‘cookie gram’ delivery. 

“Yeah that’s her all right, It was for my..well, ex-girlfriend.” He coughs under his breath, and she glanced to see his jawline stiffening as he turned to watch the tv shift channels to the latest college sports match. 

Her features soften, fighting the urge to reach out and grab his large hands and she speaks, 

“Oh, gosh I’m so sorry, I really didn’t mean to open up a wound there.” Her words were spilling out of her mouth faster that she could filter them and she was really hoping she wasn’t going to say something she’d regret later on today. 

She wasn’t really good with this, considering the only “long term” relationship she was ever in was with her middle school “boyfriend” who took her to the roller skating rink and they would walk to get vanilla cones hand in hand in the summer. 

_(he ended up breaking up with her at the fall formal before eighth grade graduation but that was a story for another day)._

But nevertheless she has had her fair share of Skype conversations with her little sister crying into a tub of Halo Top after some dorky fifteen year old with train track braces didn’t want to go to the Sadie Hawkins with her. Lara-Jean was a damn fine shoulder to cry on, and she was oddly proud of it. 

“S’okay, you didn’t know.” He shrugs, shoving his hands into the pocket of his tawny over coat. 

Her eyes drew over his frame, his arm held into a stiff position by his opposite hand, muscles flexing through the coat. 

She really didn’t have time to pay attention to details like this but, she indexed in her mind that the coat was lined at the collar and the cuffs with a shearling she was praying was faux. (Lara Jean couldn’t stomach dating a hunter) 

She also realized that he was wearing a Christmas plaid scarf, tucked around his broad shoulders. “But hey,” he stopped her before she was about to replay her podcast, afraid of the awkward pause in conversation, and to get her mind off he might have been wearing _underneath_ that coat. 

“They were really good cookies by the way, what was the so called secret ingredient?”

 _(it was real vanilla bean chopped up into the frosting)_ only she knew this, as it was a recipe that was tested in her kitchen at home over the spring break over and over again, she glances up at him, pink lips upturning into a small smile. 

“A true baker never gives out her secrets” she smiles slightly, her cheeks flushing pink.

"But maybe one day I could teach you how to frost them, it's really not that hard once you get the hang of it. I'll even let you use some of my special sprinkles.”

Maybe it was the buzz of how much liquid cough medicine she had consumed in the last eight hours, but she had a warm fuzzy feeling in the pit of her stomach when she spoke, and the way he looked at her, like no other guy in college had looked at her before. 

Like for some ungodly reason, he wanted to listen to her and he wanted to hear every part of what she had to say, even in the ER waiting room, at (now) almost 2am. 

“I thought that was only about magicians.” He laughs, before inhaling sharply through his teeth, grasping for his arm. “I should not have laughed that hard, _fuck_.” 

And she has to place her knuckles right under her nose to keep herself from laughing at him.  
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
Eventually, she hears the miraculous sound of “Song, Lara Jay?” Being called by the nurse in kitten themed scrubs. 

She resists the urge to cringe and correct them that it was ‘Jean’, thankful that she wasn’t going to have to spend the rest of the night at emerge. She waves slightly at who she now knows as Peter Kavinsky, following the nurse to triage. 

She ends up leaving with a bad case of bronchitis, and was sent out with a prescription for some strong antibiotics and strict instructions for rest and recovery.

It was times like these when Lara Jean wished she was still at home, and she could ask Daddy or even Kitty to warm her up soup and fluff her bed pillows for her, bating her with the promise (and bribe) of homemade cinnamon buns with cream cheese icing the next time she was home 

_(really try and pull out the full nine yards of being incapable and ‘too sick' to even do any of the dishes’)_

She realized all too soon after her first semester of college, that actually _“adulting”_ meant that you had to make your own damn soup because you have a paper due in two days on the advantages of ‘SWOT analyses’ and you were going to miss about seven and a half hours of lectures.  
______________________________________________________________________________________________  
“Funny seeing you here again plague bearer.” She inhales slightly as she hears a familiar voice just behind her. 

She was picking a few things up in the grocery store while she waited for her prescription to be filled.

Her roommates would thank her since they were all living off of avocado toast and bagels with lox the last few weeks. She turns, thankful for the scarf that hid most of her flushed cheeks. 

“I could say the same to you, Mr. _I’m-too-tough-for-pain-meds_ ,” 

His arm was set into a dark green sling that wrapped around his broad shoulder, and he still had an irresistibly goofy grin plastered onto his face. His cheeks must have to hurt at the end of the day from all the smiling he does, Lara-Jean decides.. 

He scoffs at her comment, but she knew it was out of playfulness.  
“I’ll have you know Lara Jean, I have myself a nice cocktail of morphine in my pocket right now.,” he pats the pocket of his coat with a grin “And I’m just about ready to settle home with Vikings on Netflix and a bottle of whisky, after of course I pick up my frozen bacon mushroom pizza. .” 

She frowns slightly “I thought you weren’t supposed to mix drugs and alcohol, or did you not get that assembly back in middle school?” 

He shrugs as well as he could with his arm in a sling, and bites his lip. 

“I’m a sucker for danger Lara-Jean, any roll of the dice I’ll gamble,” and he flashes another hundred dollar grin her way, 

if she wasn’t currently floating on a cloud of liquid DayQuil she would’ve fled from the aisle as fast as she could, she was self proclaimed the absolute worst person when it came to flirting and dating. 

She turns over a packet of throat lozenges in her hand, focusing too much on the writing that adorned the wrapping. 

“Oh please, I’m sure you could smile at one of the nurses and they’d give you literally anything, you’ve totally got that Crybaby thing going on right now, I’m sure the nursing students probably fought each other in the back room over who was going to set your arm, they're probably drawing straws for your next appointment for the xray” she giggled. 

His dark brows furrow together, creating a crease in his forehead. 

“Cry baby? Is that some sort of dig at me Covey?” A unruly brow is raised in her direction, and she laughs shaking her head, tossing the lozenges into her shopping basket. 

“Don’t you know? Johnny Depp? In the eighties? Leather jacket aesthetic? Rebel without a cause? Don't tell me you've never seen it- It's such a classic!" She tries desperately. 

“Ugh I give up, you’re useless.” She throws up her hands in an act of defeat. 

She tentatively steps forward, reaching up to bring a single sectioned out piece of his hair down onto his forehead, framing it as a curl that sat just between his brows, flush against his forehead. 

“There we go, perfect.” 

-And there’s a small moment where they stay like that, and perhaps if they stayed a second longer , a move would have been made, right there in aisle five, beside the rows of Mickey Mouse Band-Aids, and maybe his hands would have found her belt loops and brought her to fit against him an- 

But not before Lara-Jean turns a shade of peach far deeper than the Korean blush she uses, pulling away prematurely to check the time on her phone, suddenly becoming engrossed in what was updating. 

“Hey, are you busy later?”

Lara Jean glances up from her Instagram feed, looking once and then again to ensure he was talking to her and not some other girl with a basket full of kale and matcha green tea. 

“Not particularly, other than my uber home and then my oh so important plans to wallow in my own pain and suffering, really important plans y'know, I can't really cancel them so last minute. " she laughs, and this time it was a genuine laugh, one that sparkled up through her cheeks and made the corners of her eyes scrunch. 

"Well, you're not about to take the place of Vikings and my gormet frozen pizza of course, I can't do my dude Ragnar dirty like that." he chuckles, glancing down at his boots "But I mean, once we both get better of course, I'd like to take you up on that offer sometime. Maybe next week?" 

Lara Jean almost chokes on her own gasp of air, because of course he'd remember some stupid little thing she said in the emerge waiting room. 

"I'd quite like that," she smiles softly, shifting her basket. "What's your favourite kind of cookie and wine pairing Peter Kavinsky?" 

and oh, did Lara Jean have some baking to do, 

_(most preferably with an assistant in a Christmas plaid scarf and green arm sling.)_

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and nice comments (even constructive criticism!) are always appreciated and loved !! 
> 
> (comments make my day so much better honestly!)


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